Business Morphology: How to navigate through change

By Julie Nerney and Geoff Robins

Standing still in today’s business environment is not an option if you are to survive and thrive. But navigating your way through change can be complex, challenging and daunting. Business Morphology is here to help break down this complexity.

No matter what sector you’re in or what challenges your organization is facing, there are five fundamental levers that you can apply to effect real change.

This book explores each of those five levers through a Morphology Map – an easy-to-use visual tool to help guide your thinking and prioritisation, and create a plan of action to help ensure you reach your outcomes. As an added bonus, there is also a Morphology Map to help you maximise your own personal impact too.

Julie Nerney, MBA, CDir, FloD has been a serial entrepreneur, and is now a business transformation expert, spanning private, public and not-for-profit sectors. Geoff Robins BSc, PhD has led a number of major transformation programmes in the private and public sectors and is now a strategic advisor and Non-Executive Director.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Practical Inspiration Publishing
• Release date: Oct 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9781788604765

Julie Nerney

Julie Nerney is a serial entrepreneur, transformation expert, CEO, NED, Chair, guest lecturer and public speaker. With insights from working with hundreds of organisations across every sector, she is certain that how teams and leaders approach work is a far bigger driver of success than what they do. She is a passionate advocate for authentic, purposeful leadership.

Book preview

Preface

Why Morphology?

We thought long and hard about this, and realize that our use of the term Morphology may warrant an apology to the purists out there, but bear with us. The Collins English Dictionary definition of Morphology (n) is:

1. The branch of biology concerned with the form and structure in organisms.

2. The form and structure of words in a language, especially the consistent patterns of inflection, combination, derivation and change, that may be observed and classified.

3. The form and structure of anything.

When you consider that definition, this book is clearly not aimed at the biological or linguist aspects, but it is concerned with the form and structure of organizations and how their people, processes and systems interact together.

In particular, what propelled us to write this book was the desire to help leaders and managers navigate their way through changes to their organizations in a way that is as smooth as possible and delivers maximum impact and outcomes.

So, our use of the word Morphology, is a blend of two terms as cited in the Cambridge English Dictionary:

Morph (v): to gradually, change, or change someone or something, from one thing or another; and

Ology (n): Informal. A science or other branch of knowledge.

The combination of these is the foundation of this book, which seeks to address the core question facing leaders and managers everywhere: How do you change the form and structure of your organization for the better, and what are the important things you need to consider and plan for when doing it?

We are, of course, not claiming that this book is a scientific publication. But it is a source of knowledge based on over 75 years collective experience of changing organizations from one state to another. Sharing things we wish we’d known when we first encountered them. And some of the iterative learning that occurs from having done them multiple times, in different contexts and sectors. We want to save you getting the same battle scars as us, so you reach the outcomes that you want faster.

So, with apologies to the Biologists and the Linguists for high-jacking your definition – welcome to Business Morphology.

Chapter 1

Morphology Maps: Navigating change

Standing still is the fastest way of moving backwards in a rapidly changing world.

Lauren Bacall

Introduction

Over the past ten years the list of major organizations that have gone out of business is staggering. They cover all sectors of the industrial landscape, and include household names such as Kodak, Toys R Us, Blockbuster, Tower Records, Woolworths, the list goes on. Even where elements of these brands have survived, they do so under a very different business model. And although Lauren Bacall was best known as a great American film star, her words of wisdom remain true today as they ever were.

Of course, the reason for the failure of each of these organizations is complicated and driven by a range of events including rapid market shifts, new technology advancements and global financial issues. However, the common thread when you read any of the reflections on what went wrong for these organizations, is that they were slow to fully recognize the threats in front of them, and slow to react. The truth of the matter is that in today’s global and interconnected marketplace, if you are to survive and thrive – irrespective of your starting point – standing still is not an option. Your business must continue to evolve and adapt over time to stay relevant and competitive.

Context for this book

We know from our extensive experience of designing and leading change, that altering the way in which an organization operates, is structured or works, can be described in a range of different ways. It could be branded a change programme, or badged with the increasingly over used label of transformation. In our opinion what these terms express are two ends of a spectrum: a transformation is something that can never revert to its former state – like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly – whereas a change is something that could be reversed or replaced, like a system or process update.

Irrespective of where you sit on this spectrum, in the context of this book we describe any implementation of change as morphing – changing from one state to another as seamlessly as possible, at a pace that is dictated by the environment in which you find yourself.

This is not a one-off activity. Organizations are constantly adapting and evolving, and you should consider each time you morph as a wave of change that creates a new foundation for the next one – like the way a volcano shapes its landscape. An eruption creates a high impact change as the molten lava flows, but this lava then solidifies and creates a new state, until the next eruption. A volcano is never done, and as a result the surrounding area morphs over time. This is the same principle for organizational change – albeit it on a much shorter timescale. Morph, let those changes settle, look over your shoulder at how far you’ve come, celebrate that achievement, then morph again.

The reasons for the need to morph from one state to another are varied. Disruptions in the market or context in which your business operates may necessitate hard defensive choices to ensure survival. Alternatively, unexpected openings may appear as a result of emerging technology, which create both the opportunity and environment for your business to succeed. Whatever the reason, if change is required, a plan of action is needed, and this book is designed to help you do just that – plan and successfully navigate your way through change.

Business Morphology Maps

The process of change can be complex, challenging and even daunting. Business Morphology is here to help break down this complexity so that you can start to put together a coherent and realistic plan of what to do and when. At the heart of Business Morphology are the Morphology Maps, which are an easy to use, visual tool to help guide your thinking and prioritization.

The start point for the creation of a Map is the desired outcomes you are seeking to achieve. This will be triggered by a range of considerations but will be based upon the key metrics that you use to manage and run your business. For example, falling profit while maintaining revenue could suggest that your organization is becoming less efficient; falling sales could indicate that you need to consider what you are selling and how you are doing it compared with your competitors; an increase in staff turnover and decrease in staff engagement might require you to consider your approach to how you are attracting and retaining your people. Any of these examples should result in making changes that reverse these trends. However, your desired outcomes could equally be driven by a proactive strategy that is geared to increasing shareholder value. Typically, this will result in a desire to accelerate growth by moving into different markets or by undertaking a merger or acquisition.

So, identifying what you want to achieve is at the heart of selecting the change lever (or levers) you need to employ to achieve the outcomes you require; and irrespective of what levers you pull, you need a plan of action that will get you there. To assist in building that plan of action the Morphology Maps are constructed around two simple axes: things that you can control and things that you must seek to influence.

Of these two axes, defining the things you can control is clearly the easiest to do and, irrespective of the change lever you select there will be some fundamental components that will always be part of this side of the Map:

•Ensuring that you understand the core purpose of your organization and the outcomes you are seeking to achieve from any changes you embark on.

•Activities that enable you to understand the environment you are operating in and the factors you need to take into consideration when changing.

•The need to ensure your structure and organization is correctly aligned to your purpose and direction.

•Changes that are designed to optimize the efficiency of your processes, systems and people.

But these activities cannot be pursued in isolation. All organizations have their own internal ecosystems and they operate within a large and complex external environment. Much of this is difficult to understand, and even more difficult to control. This is where the influence side of the Morphology Map comes to the fore. In any change activity there are a range of stakeholders that need to be communicated with, engaged and influenced. This can range from your own staff, through to customers and stakeholders that you might not have met yet. Understanding who the key stakeholders are is a critical element of the influence side of any Morphology Map.

To bring this to life each of the key activities on the control side of the Map, or the key stakeholder groups on the influence side of the Map, are drawn as a separate elements with an appropriate description. Each element is then joined to others via a series of arrows in order to show the potential inter-relationship that will exist between them. In some cases this will be because some elements will be dependent on others taking place first. In other cases the inter-relationship will be enduring but its importance may vary over time.

And it is your communication and engagement activities that join the two sides of the Map together. They are not only the pivot for each of the Maps presented in this book but they are also essential to the success of the changes you are seeking to make. These communication and engagement activities need to be as comprehensive as possible, recognizing that there will be timing and complexity considerations for each of the different audiences. And, like every part of your plan, you will want to iterate and modify these activities over time based on the feedback you receive.

Foundation for your plan of action

It is important to note that a Morphology Map is not your plan. The power of the Map is to help you identify the things that are important to consider so that they form the foundation of a rigorous plan of who does what, and when, to get to your desired outcomes.

The Map is at the heart of guiding you to prioritize your time and energy on the right things with the right level of detail to address specific areas of concern or risk. Every plan will be entirely dependent on the scenario your organization finds itself in.

And, of course, as the saying goes, no plan survives contact with the enemy. Your plan should be dynamic and iterative. As you progress through the actions you’ve determined you need, take a moment to pause to think about what impact it has had. This reflection will help you continually re-focus to get the outcomes you want in the most effective way.

Change levers

Having determined the need to change and the outcomes you want to achieve, the start point for any Morphology Map is the identification of the most appropriate change lever. In our experience, there are five fundamental levers that can be applied to effect real change in an organization. We can say this with confidence because when we look back over the dozens of change initiatives we’ve both been involved in, they all come back to one or more of these five levers. They are:

1. Modifying your operating model

2. Product or service diversification

3. Mergers or acquisitions

4. People

5. Culture

So, which of these levers do you need to apply to ensure you achieve the outcome you require? Most people will naturally focus on the first three levers of modifying their